1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Ethernet systems and, more particularly, to advanced and dynamic physical layer device capabilities utilizing a link interruption signal.
2. Introduction
Ethernet is a network communication standard that is used widely in communicating information between computers and other electronic devices. On example of such a network communication standard is 10GBASE-T, which allows 10 gigabit/second connections over unshielded or shielded twisted pair cables, over distances up to 100 meters.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example end-to-end link environment in which 10GBASE-T can be applied. As illustrated, server 110 is coupled to switch 120 by a link supported by physical layer devices (PHYs) 112, 122. As would be appreciated, a controller such as that within server 110 can generally be part of a client (e.g., laptop, desktop or workstation), a server (e.g., audio-video (AV) server, high performance computing (HPC) server), or a consumer edge device (e.g., HDTV, Blueray, etc.). Further, switch 120 can represent a router or any other device that incorporates multi-port switch functionality. In various examples, the switch can be a consumer, SMB, enterprise, metro, or access switch. In another example, the switch can represent a voice over IP (VoIP) chip that has a network interface (Port 0) and a PC interface (Port 1). In yet another example, the switch can represent a customer premise equipment (CPE) device in a service provider access network that can have an optical central office (CO) facing interface (Port 0) and multiple interfaces (Ports 1-N) that are facing the home and/or gateway (e.g., the CPE can simply be a media converter and/or part of the home gateway). Still further, the switch can represent an access point such as a WLAN base station.
As is further illustrated in FIG. 1, PHYs 112 and 122 interface with media access controllers (MACs) 114 and 124, respectively. After a link is established, PHYs 112, 122 can be configured to perform various actions that can potentially impact the status of the established link as seen by MACs 114, 124. Examples of these various actions include dynamically changing a speed of a link, performing link retransmission, link retraining, etc. In this environment, what is needed is a mechanism that enables PHYs to perform the various advanced and dynamic actions without adversely affecting the link status as seen by the MACs to which the PHYs are connected.